Given the budget crisis, our state should invest its limited funds wisely. That's why we should be angry that state leaders gave $254,000 of taxpayer dollars to a company with jobs that average $19,111 a year - below the poverty line for a family of four (news story, May 20).
This deal is hardly a wise investment considering that taxpayers will pay for these jobs twice. First, we pay for the incentives to lure the company to North Carolina. Then we'll pay again when the employees need food stamps and other public assistance to make ends meet.
Paying workers less and less is not how we rebuild our economy. Workers are the consumers and the taxpayers who grease the wheels that make the economy go round. When you take away our buying power, as two decades of stagnating wages have done, the wheels grind to a halt just like they did in this economic crisis.
